A Shore Thing

In June 2020, A Shore Thing’s crew of four rowers - Susan Douglass, Anya Anstey, Charity Phillips and Rebecca Mingo - will set out on an epic adventure, covering 500 miles from London’s Tower Bridge to Land’s End as part of the GB Row Challenge.

We will be crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world, rowing against prevailing westerly winds, coping with heat, rain, fog or whatever weather is thrown at us, and we'll row in two-hour shifts day and night until we reach our destination. In total it’s the equivalent of 19 consecutive marathons. The crew are all Tamar & Tavy Gig Club rowers which means we are used to the generally flat and sheltered conditions of the river, and have very little experience of the sea. We will need to complete a number of essential safety and navigation courses to prepare ourselves for the difficult and constantly changing conditions of the English Channel. 

The idea of undertaking something so far out of our comfort zone came about at the end of 2019, and after coming up with a crew name and some branding, Nicola Bathe Business Support very generously supplied us with a website; so by the end of the year we’d officially begun our mission. In early March 2020 we put on our first fundraising event, a big breakfast. The whole gig club either helped or came along to eat and support us, and we were blown away by the generosity and support we received. We also received some generous donations, including corporate sponsorship from Egerton Clinical Consultancy, giving us a great start to our fundraising. However just as we were getting started, coronavirus hit. All our plans to raise awareness of our challenge and fundraise came to a screeching halt, with no more rowing or events for the foreseeable future.

We chose to raise money for mental health charities Devon Mind and Cornwall Mind, and we feel it’s more important than ever in the difficult circumstances we are all facing, that these organisations are able to support people, and help them deal with the added anxiety, fear and uncertainty. They provide training, counselling and support groups to those in need, and the more money we raise the more people they can help.

Currently we are able to train as a group over Zoom, doing some strength training and cardio workouts to keep us fit and happy, and we look forward to the day we can go rowing together. As soon as we are able, we will be taking sculling lessons - a sliding seat form of rowing similar to the experience in our ocean rowing boat – as well as doing some team building exercises. This challenge will be as much mental as physical, so we need to work on our mental strength and resilience and prepare for the difficult sleep deprivation that will result from a two-hour shift pattern. We also need to assume the worst-case scenario of strong winds and be as strong as possible before the event. 

A major part of this challenge is raising enough money to fund the trip itself. Ocean rowing boats are highly technical vessels with solar panels, navigation equipment, a device to turn seawater into drinking water (which is also used to rehydrate our required high energy foods) not to mention oars, shore support and race entry fees. As you can imagine, a global pandemic makes gaining corporate sponsorship a little tricky, and fundraising events next to impossible. Therefore we have recently launched a virtual ocean rowing challenge, where anyone can join a crew based or solo mission with A Shore Thing’s crew and compete with each other in a virtual race along the south coast. We have medals for all finishers and prizes available for lots of different categories, not just the fastest, so anyone could win something. It’s a really exciting initiative that will hopefully allow some of the coastal and gig rowers out there a chance to enjoy some competitiveness this summer, despite all the cancelled events. Data can be entered from rowing, running, cycling etc, and the distance is tracked on a map so you can see how far you’ve come.

Whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we’re doing and how far we have to go it’s important that we remember why we are doing this, and how important the money we raise will be to people’s lives.

Susan Douglass

We are accepting sponsorship applications with the chance to brand our amazing ocean rowing boat or our official crew vests which will be used for all promotional activities. 

For more information see ashorething.uk or facebook.com/ashorethinguk

Or join our virtual challenge at myvirtualmission.com/missions/52994/longships-challenge